Flesh And Bones
by grendels
Summary: /"A week in Gotham City was exactly what she needed.' Well, what B doesn't know won't hurt her... /GG/The Dark Knight crossover. Written for the September Fireplace Challenge. TV show based/


Title:Flesh And Blood

Author: Gema227

Rating: T for language

Words: 2,385

Warnings: Some violence, nothing really bad though and one use of the f-word.

Disclaimer: I do not own 'The Dark Knight" or any related characters, nor do I own "Gossip Girl" or any of it's related characters.

Notes: Wow, can you say "random"!? This was written for The Fireplace's "Credible Crossover" Challenge, where you had to cross over two different fandoms and make it plausible. I knew I wanted to do something with "TDK" because I already had a plot bunny in mind for that and I wanted to cross it over with a fandom that I haven't written for yet and "Wa-la!", here it is. I hope I kept Blair in character okay, because I follow the TV series, not the books. Sorry about all the italics abuse, but it's really the only way you can justify the Joker's speech patterns.

xXx

This line was really, really long.

Blair tapped the toe of her sandal against the granite floor, the sound echoing through out the crowded bank. She peeked over the shoulder of the man ahead of her and counted at least ten people ahead of him. Scoffing, she pulled her phone out of her purse and flipped it open, the LCD screen illuminating that she had a missed call from Serena. She dialed her voice mail and held the phone to her ear.

"Hey, B. It's me. Just calling to let you know that I'm going to meet you at the corner of Franklin and Madison at three. Maybe we can shop for a while and then go have lunch or something. See you then. Bye."

Blair dropped the phone back into her purse and glanced at the line again. Still, like, _seven people. _She rolled her eyes and look around the bank, hoping for something interesting to magically appear.

Even though the lines were really long, her mother was right about Gotham City. It was exactly where she needed to spend Christmas Break. Blair and Serena had spent most of their day time on Franklin Drive, the Fifth Avenue of Gotham, getting everything they would need for the rest of the winter and grabbing catalogs advertising all their favorite store's new lines for the spring.

"_Yes," _thought Blair, "_Gotham City is exactly what I needed." _

Out of nowhere, the gold-gilded doors of the bank slammed open, crashing against the walls. Her heart leaped into her throat and she whipped around just in time to see a man wearing a clown mask point a gun at her.

She screamed, covering her mouth with her hands. "Get down!" he barked hoarsely at her. "Against the wall." The butt of the gun swung towards her head and she ducked out of the way, running to the far wall where a few other people were gathered.

Her knees gave way and she slid down the marble surface, the stone cooling her flaming skin. This wasn't happening. This. Was. Not. Happening.

"Hello, ladies and _gentle-_men." A voice shot through the air and Blair heard footsteps on the floor and craned her neck to see whom they belong to.

Her eyes met a pair of scuffed up leather slipper-like shoes with weird-looking threaded laces. In those shoes were a pair of brown, purple and green argyle socks, followed by a pair of purple pants made out of a material Blair couldn't quite figure out. She looked up, seeing the blue checkered shirt, the green vest and the long, floor-length purple coat, all these things leading up to the most horrific face she had ever seen.

It was a man, a tall man, with light brown hair, which was, for some reason, tinted green. His entire face was caked with white face paint; his eyes rimmed with black and red lipstick drawn across his mouth and onto his cheeks in a macabre impression of a never- fading smile.

But the _scars. _Two scars, one on each side of his face, going from the corners of his lips to almost his ears. Rippled and pale and puffy and disgusting. Blair fought the urge to throw up.

"I am _so ga-lad_ you could all make it to our show, to-_night_." He had a weird voice. All high pitched and haunting with weird inflictions on odd syllables. He whirled around on his heels, glancing at each and every person as he spun. The guys in the clown masks, Blair noticed, were gone. Off to rob the back dry, she supposed.

The man in the purple suit spun around once more before stopping and even then he swayed back on forth, humming to himself.

"We are going to play a little….game." He giggled, the sound sent chills down Blair's spine and she pressed herself against the wall and closed her eyes as tight as she could, but the voice didn't seen to get any quieter.

"I'm going to pick one of _you _and your job is going to be to pick whether to save that _per-_son or save your-_selves." _He explained, scanning the group of terrified people in front of him.

"We aren't afraid of you, you bastard!" someone called out from the audience. Everyone turned at once to look at him. A guy dressed nicely in a business suit and tie.

"Oh." The man in the purple suit feigned surprise. "Is…that…._so_?" A flash of silver, a shoot rang out and the man in the business suit was dead before he hit the ground. A collected gasp went up and Blair curled her lips around a whimper threatening to escape. The man's blood trickled down the white marble, the red contrasting almost painfully with the flecked white. Blair was going to throw up. Oh, god, she was going to puke and ruin her nice new white shorts, oh, god….

She focused her attention back to the Purple Suit, doing her best to fight off all remaining traces of nausea. "_Just breathe." _She told herself, rubbing her arms. "_Just count to ten and it'll all be over." _

Over.

Count to ten and she would wake up from the nightmare that was taking place right in front of her own eyes.

Purple Suit was swinging a pistol at his side like a child swinging a teddy bear. Suddenly, before Blair even had time to react, he had the gun pointed at the head of the woman sitting next to her.

Blair's body was frozen. She could hear the women scream and something that sounded suspiciously like her own voice calling out "Don't!" and then she was jerked back into real-life, everything reeling around her in painfully bright colors.

And then the shoes were in front of her. Right in front of her.

"Why, _hello _gorgeous!" Purple Suit exclaimed, bending down and grabbing Blair by her forearms, hauling her up so they were eye-level with each other. She had to stand on tip-toe to be the same height as him. He was even more ugly up close, the scent of grease paint and sweat was overpowering. She desperately wished that he would let her turn and cool her cheeks upon the marble, but she didn't want to risk anything, so she stayed silent, her heart beating against her ribcage so fast that she thought is was going to burst out of it and fly away.

"What's _your _name, doll face?" He asked cheerily, shoving his face uncomfortably close to hers. She remained quiet, her lips not obeying her mind. "Hmmm?" He cocked his head, staring her straight in the eyes.

"Blair." She finally managed to whisper through dry lips. She was such a fucking idiot! Her real name! What was she thinking?!

"Blair." He repeated, her name suddenly sounded malicious and cruel coming from his lips.

"So, _Blair, _now that I know your name, you should know mine. You can call me The Joker." He giggled slightly again and she struggled in his grasp for a moment. " You look a bit…_frightened, _Blair…..Are the scars creeping you out? They do that sometimes." He pushed his face even closer to hers and she could feel the hot sting of tears threatening to spill over. "Wanna know how I, uh…_got 'em_?

She shook her head furiously. No, no, no, really she didn't want to know. Ignoring her protests, the Joker went on.

"When I was in high school, I was a, uh….dork. _Awk_-ward and scrawny and too sa-_mart _for my own good." He paused and licked his lips. "Do you know any boys like that, _Ba-_lair?" He stopped again, as if waiting for a response but she remained silent. "Oh, I _bet_ you do. So, there was this girl and she was gorgeous, _just like you_, and she had a best friend. Her best friend was _blonde_. Is your best friend blonde?" Blair could feel every muscle in her body tighten and her eyes grow wide. He couldn't know. How could he know who Serena was? How? Maybe he was just guessing…

"She _is!" _The Joker exclaimed with no lost sense of enthusiasm. "So, really, you probably can relate to this girl. So, I had a bit of a, uh…_crush_ on this girl. Thought she was pretty, wanted to kiss her, all that stuff. You probably have _so_ many boys who think the same about you."

A soft "_shing" _sounded and Blair bit her lip to keep from crying out at she saw the silver handle of a small knife in his hand. Slowly, almost tentatively, he placed the very tip of the knife right under her exposed collarbone, tracing its outline with the blade, right on the top of her skin, not hard enough to cut. She watched it, being careful not to move at all, knowing that one wrong turn could draw blood. Her own breath rattled in her throat and god, she hated _feeling _like this. Alone and scared and completely, utterly helpless.

The Joker continued to talk, using the knife to draw invisible patterns on her skin. "So, it was the, uh..end of year dance at my high sc-_hool _and I worked up the courage to ask this _girl_ to dance." He stared down at the knife, still drawing it along her skin, almost lost in thought. Desperately looking around, Blair turned her head, trying to catch someone's eye. No one would respond.

"I ask her to dance." The Joker continues, bring his eyes up again to meet hers. "And she _laughs _at me! Looks at me and laughs _right in my face_. _Nat_-urally, I was just _crushed _and I turned to walk away. She _ga_-rabs my shoulder puts her face right up to mine and says-" He pushed his face in front of hers, their noses touching. Blair could still feel the cold touch of steel along her collarbone and the hot sting of tears as one-by-one they spilled over her lower eyelids. The Joker's face fell.

"Oh, don't cry, Ba-lair. You're too pretty to cry. Shh…shh…" He put a gloved hand to her cheek and began to run his fingers along her face almost…tenderly. "Don't you want to know what she said?" Blair swallowed and shook her head again, knowing that it was useless.

"She grabs my shoulder and says "I'd dance with you if you weren't so _serious_." I'm still hurt so I leave the dance and start to walk home. Well, apparent-_ly_, her boy-_friend _saw me talking to her and decided that I was a _tha_-ret. So, he and a few of his buddies follow me home and jump me. A few of the cronies pin me down while the boyfriend sticks a knife in my mouth and does…_this." _He grabbed her hand and placed it to his face, running her fingers over the raised edges of the wounds. "You probably think that that was a _horrible_ thing for him to do, but, really, he was doing me a favor! He was just trying to help me. Trying to get me to be a little less serious! Do you get it?" Blair nodded once, twice. "Great story, huh?"

She was full on sobbing now, the tears burning hot against her skin. The knife was still pressed against her collarbone and she thought she might scream if it was kept there any longer.

The Joker cleared his throat. 'Well, now that we have that all done and over with, we're going to decide whether you live or die." He turned to the women sitting on the floor next them. "You." He pointed to the women, who cowered back in fear. "Do you think she should die?" The women didn't respond, her whole body practically seizing in terror. The Joker turned back to Blair. "I'm going to take that as a yes." He looked towards the women again. 'Well, that's not very nice." He mock-scolded. "What did _Ba_-lair here ever do to you?"

"Hey boss!" one of the guys in the clown mask called. "We're ready to go!" The Joker spun around, the blade sliding across her skin as he released her. She cried out in agony, clasping her hands to the wound as her legs gave out. She watched in horror as the blood spilled out from between her fingers, staining her palms red and dribbling down onto her blouse. The Joker turned back to her, his face showing mock surprise. "Oh dear." He said. 'Can some one please help her? Her true self is spilling out all over the floor." He made a _tsk tsk_ sound and bent down so that he was eye level with her. "Because when you get right down to it, gorgeous, we're all just flesh and bones." His mouth split into a maniacal smile, his haunting cackle penetrating the air. He straightened up, turned in his heel, and was gone.

Blair rested her head against the wall, silently allowing the shock of what had just happened to overtake her. Her chest wracked with sobs and she fought as hard as she could to keep herself together. She could hear police outside the bank, radios squawking and hundreds of people shouting, "What happened? What's going on?"

Through the clamor, she heard a familiar voice. "Please, please let me in! My best friend is in there; I have to see if she's okay! Please!" Serena. Blair watched as the blonde slipped under the police tape and nearly flew to her side.

"Blair, oh god, Blair! Are you okay? What happened?" Her eyes grew wide as she saw Blair's hand pressed to her own collarbone, the blood seeping through the spaces between her fingers. "My god, what happened to you?"

Blair choked for a second before swallowing. "I fell against a table." She lied. "Everyone was running around and someone pushed me and I fell against a table."

"Oh god. Are you okay?" Serena's voice was comforting and soft, like a lullaby. Blair nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

"Woah, what's this?" Serena asked, pulling something out from Blair's sleeve. It was a playing card, old and faded. She handed it to Blair for her to see. Blair took one look at it, opened her mouth and began to scream.

In the distance, a single, horrific cackle rang out in the night.


End file.
